Corrupted Save File
by kusegoto
Summary: Yu Narukami sees his fingers move, but does not feel the flesh bend-he sees his friends talk, but he's not sure if they are truly there. Severe unreality/depersonalization warning.


old fic, crossposted from ao3 - heavy warning for unreality/depersonalization and questioning your own existence.

* * *

It starts early on. Once you press your skull to the glass of your television, and you collapse in a world you don't know the name of—it begins there. It's small, but it's _there_.

You're with Yosuke and Chie, and you find a room where someone may have ended their life—and then you find a walking _animal_ , and the air you were breathing hardened your stomach like firm caramels, but the _creature_ makes you want to throw up. Anxiety creeps up on you at times you'd rather it not—but, but, the thing calls itself 'Teddie' and it's friendly enough to push you out.

That was the first time. The first time you felt _that_. "That" is the thing you feel when reality melts, like wax down the length of itself—the sweat down your brow and the blood off your first injury sustained in the television. You're not sure what _that_ is, what _it_ could be. Because the world isn't fiction, it can't _do_ this. You're a superstitious person at times, but you know the worst comes in dreams and not reality.

But the feeling passes, for the moment. It drifts down the river, getting caught on a stone. You learn how to use a sword, you find out Yosuke took a knife throwing class once, and Chie should go into judo, professionally. The television keeps hardening your stomach, you can't look Teddie in the eye, but when you put a blade through that prince's throat and pull Yukiko off the ground, you have enough time to forget about your insecurities, the improbabilities. You learn how to stop chewing on your cheek and finally swallow the terror, and the next time you go in to show Yukiko the ropes, your insides don't tie up.

When practise isn't going on, and you don't have music that day, you go into the television. Even with Yosuke thrusting 'leadership' on you, you take the reins and never let go. So, when June rolls around, Kanji feels like routine. You sweat when you go into the bath house and it's hard to drag Kanji out, but you're _alive_ , most of all, and for once passing through the threshold of foggy wasteland and _real life_ feels exhilarating. When Yosuke parts way to walk Kanji home, Yukiko asks how you feel. You look her in the eye and you say you've never felt more alive.

The square shaped hypnosis trance burns into your eyes. You hear music, and your friends sound quiet. Their mouths move, but music drowns them out. You figure it's the television suffocating them, drowning out human voices, some manic repetition roaring in your ears. You start to show Kanji what fighting means and what it does, how it lifts the atmosphere and makes your shoulders relax more. He decapitates one of the Shadows with a single sweep of his folding desk. You all cheer for him.

Yosuke grins at you the next time you crack the mask of one of those smaller creatures. _Let's go, partner!_

* * *

But when it becomes late June, and you come back from your school trip, your stomach begins to harden once more. You wake up, and get dressed.

( you don't remember standing up or getting out of bed, you don't remember the calm lull of reality from sleep, you just found yourself standing in uniform, hand in pocket, looking out the window )

You're at the flood plain, and you're walking to school. The sun is swallowed whole by the clouds, but the summer wild flowers nod in the surprisingly pleasant breeze. Students walk behind you.

( it's cloudy because the news cast said so, but you don't remember watching television, you never watch it except when it's sunday, and last time you did you felt strange, because you were putting on the president tanaka show and you _know_ you didn't leave the channel on it last time )

Yosuke calls for you. He greets you, casually.

( no, you're still thinking about that—how did you know it was going to be cloudy? you think about your dreams, and you remember a number, a giant 06, and a slider, and you assume that was cotton clouds confined in a small box )

Classes have ended for today. It's a Monday.

It's Monday, June 20th, and you stand in your classroom for a period of time. You stare at the wall behind you, and your hands are locked in your pockets, and you don't know _why_ you can't move until you suddenly lurch forward—your legs aren't your own, you walk with a mission in mind—but you don't know the mission, you storm up to the roof and Chie is there, she's always there—

Why can't you remember what you learned today? Mr. Morooka asked a question, you know this, but other than that, what did you see, what was whispered to you, Naoki Konishi looked at you in the hallway during lunch but that's it—

( schedules. you are plagued by schedules. that's all. )

* * *

When June 24th rolls around, Rise Kujikawa goes missing. When Teddie picks up her presence, you enter a club, music pulsating, getting into your _bones_ and shifting through your veins. You don't know if the pounding in your ears is the music or blood, because it lingers even after Yukiko picks you up with a Diarama spell—you strike twice as hard the next swing and the two interlocked dancers are **bisected** in your fury.

You feel something building in you. It's not in your stomach—it's spilling _over_ your stomach now. You feel acid burn your insides, and it builds, and builds. Your lungs sear with each gasp in. Chie says they should go back, because that big one back there took a lot out of her and Yosuke—but Kanji is yelling they're almost there, and Teddie nervously nods, saying that Rise is but a floor away. You swallow your vomit and you walk towards the steps.

It's a parasite. You feel like it's spreading through your nerves, weaving through the bars of your ribcage, and pulls down on you. It's like a tight jacket, or a full body uniform too small—you're cringing as you open the doors to Rise. Yosuke thinks you're sickened by the naked creature on the stage, spreading its legs and grinning a soulless smile in a crude, sexual desperation. He wouldn't be wrong, but you're not plagued by Rise's horrors.

Until Teddie gives his vessel for them, and she says five words that break him.

"There _is_ no real me!"

( quietly, quietly, without anyone else hearing, because the shrill tone of the bear overlaps your own voice, you mutter, because you feel your insides go hollow, your bones empty out and your blood go cold, the colour leaving your face and something dropping in your stomach, )

no

real

me

 _"Ted," Yosuke tries to laugh, his handsome laugh that he puts on to diffuse Chie's temper or his father's exasperated rants, holding up a hand as his others clutch both kunai, "C'mon—don't freak out, alright? We'll figure out who you are—"_

 _"There's no real me?"_

 _"That's not true," it's Yukiko's turn, and she's kneeling down to give her maternal smile unto the soft boy, ragged and filthy and comically ruined, and she realizes how pathetic he looks, and how pathetic he feels. "No… Teddie, look, Rise-chan didn't mean you weren't anything!"_

 _"I… I should have… realized…"_

 _Chie looks to Rise, who stands foolishly in her storefront uniform, and doesn't realize the magnitude of her words._

Teddie begins to scream. Out comes a beast none of you have ever seen before, cracked like porcelain and filthy like a corpse. It has claws that have cut the flesh of its paws, and it boasts of the pointlessness of the world, the void that exists beneath all matters of flesh and bone. How your existence is provided by organs and nothing else, and how life is but a pathway to _nothing_.

There is a cliff.

And you leap off.

You can't move. Kanji makes the first strike, and his skull cracks against the wall, wrapped in an indigo felt that does not cushion his fall. Yukiko runs to his side to scream for him to stand, and Chie has to scream _your_ name to get you to move. Yosuke's voice joins the choir.

( there is no me there is no me i do not exist )

You still can't move. Yosuke screams something, and you don't hear what he says, because it sounds—it sounds like _nothing human_. It is the sound of metal crunching beneath steel plated, the language of radio static, white noise from a broken television. He is music corrupted and emergency broadcast systems, screeching across television sets when the next earthquake is striking the country. The club's music distorts in those seconds, too, and your heart nearly bursts before Rise touches your shoulders. You can finally hear again—and she's begging you to help your friends. _They need you, senpai._

So you think about what you hold. You look to Tomoe burst from behind Chie, and violently slash into the monstrosity, fur and flesh tearing to reveal soft pink and red that does not bleed. You hear that charming voice, _Chariot_ , and you could pass out.

You give these—these _people_ , some support, by lifting your sword and running towards the beast. You call out Izanagi, but you forgot it wasn't Izanagi at the front of your mind—it was King Frost. The spirit spits lightning at the bear shaped beast, and Kanji, even with a concussion swelling his thoughts, manages to cast Zionga with you. In the same roar, he screams that _now's our chance_ , and all of you begin your rush. Rise screams praise behind you all, saying it's time you buried this thing.

( but i'm not real i'm not real who are you )

* * *

Burnt fur sticks to your clothing. Yosuke supports you, and tries to assume your behaviour— _took a nasty blow back there, huh partner?_ He tries to laugh but there's no humour, there's anguish and there's pain. He doesn't know what's wrong with you, but why would he know? Your breakdown wasn't a part of the script.

Rise holds Chie's arm as she walks back home. Yosuke follows you home, instead, keeping you supported against him, and he's making idle chatter, trying to fill the void, the void around you and the void _within_ you, and he's got such a nice voice but you think you're six out of ten interactions done with him at this point, so you want him to be quiet. You're thinking in numbers. You hear Margaret's laughter, but maybe it's the wind chimes.

Yosuke squeezes your shoulder before he starts to walk away. You watch him walk off, and expect him to disappear into smoke, like the characters always do after their cutscenes are done. You assume Nanako is going to be in front of the kotatsu tonight, rather than the side closest to the curtains, and you won't be able to talk to her.

She's watching her quiz show. You were right.

You go upstairs and vomit in the bathroom. You don't remember walking up the stairs, only walking near it, hearing Nanako say 'welcome home', and then you were upstairs, with a the toilet seat ring around your face. You swear you hear Nanako call up to you, but your lurching movements and disgusting vomit drowns her out. You aren't sure what brought it on, but then you laugh, because you know what it is. Nerves, right?

You fall asleep shaking, trembling. You couldn't bring yourself to look at your television, even if it was tradition to ensure the survival of another. Why do you look there? You know Rise was alive, the only one in there, it's scheduled into you—no, that makes no sense. It's scripted into you.

* * *

( you dream of a long limousine pulling up to you. you break character and run. The fog is thick and you can hear the engine of a car behind you, but you don't look back. )

* * *

Mr. Morooka was not supposed to die. Mitsuo Kubo was not supposed to drive your insecurities home, nor were you supposed see your slowly decomposing husk in his own empty eyes. His eyes remind you of stained glass, windows you can get lost in, windows that tell you a story—but windows you can't look out of. Trapped within, like a labyrinth beneath a castle.

 _"I am nothing. I have nothing."_

You repeat those words back, under your breath. Rise is the only one to hear.

 _I art thou, thou art I, thou art foolish in thine belief thou exists beyond numbered days._

You're growing used to the sound of music. There's music, and it's always around you. This time, there weak sounds of radios dying, old notes dug from the graves filled with sand, and the armoured creature reveals its abominable abortion within a steel chest soon enough. It writhes on the ground, and Yosuke, Kanji and Yukiko tell you to stay back because it could be dangerous, but you raise your sword high and plunge it into the soft, meaty flesh, the sobbing of an infant suffocating on blood and _dying_ at your feet.

Mitsuo is laughing when they pull him from the television like a disgusting caesarean. Nobody walks him home, because Kanji is on the phone with the police. You sit next to him, because Yosuke told you that Kanji's job as muscle was being occupied, so it was up to you. He tries to joke, saying you can match Kubo, with your dead expression you've been wearing recently. You offer a haunting, open mouthed smile. You haven't brushed your teeth today.

When you sit next to Mitsuo he tells you to stay away from him. Because you're here to tell him he's wrong, and that he's a monster for killing those girls, and the teacher. He can't move far or else Yukiko or someone will notice. So he folds his arms and looks away from you. When you look at him, you see a boy uncomfortable in his skin, who has goose flesh covering him as he curls his shoulders and retreats into his flesh prison. You think he's pathetic.

"You look like you want to say something," he says.

You ask Kubo, if he knew everything, would he tell everyone about what he knew, or would he take it to the grave?"

"Nobody listens to me," Mitsuo responds, "the best shot I have is talking to the wall. Talking to you, right now."

Then you ask him what it'd be like to die.

He's probably thankful the police cars roll up outside of Junes and your uncle comes into the electronic department, interrupting your nihilism and despair.

* * *

You sit in the car, when you once stood at the corner of a bookstore and began watching the void. You ask Igor if you're breaking character. He smiles, and says welcome to the Velvet Room.

* * *

Everything is so disgustingly in place. Yosuke is on the second floor of the school. Kanji is in the practise building, down the hall from Ayane. Daisuke throws an arm around you and ushers you off to practise.

Fourth time talking to Kanji. Then you go home. Why can't you manage time better? Why do you stay around Kanji when the conversation is dry and so are his eyes, anguished once more over his mother's state? Kanji's voice distorts, and it turns into whines, agonizing groans like failing machines, and them his charming lilt returns once more. You're growing accustomed to your friends breaking around you. Machines only go for so long. You wonder how many times you must have lived this existence.

You get a part time job at a hospital. You hear a choir of saints as a sweet young nurse opens her mouth and words don't come out, her introduction muted by the demands for spiritual sacrifice, another mask to wear, another part of your heart to carve into. You're going to put Sayoko Uehara next to Daisuke Nagase, and you're going to call her the Devil, because the voice in your head told you to.

"Welcome home!" Nanako says. You don't remember walking home. You don't remember walking up the stairs, either. Now you're in your room, and you look from your wall, to the couch, to the desk.

This is a work desk. You could probably work here…  
What will you do?

Paper cranes. Envelope making. Translating. All of your talents are filed into separate skills, numbered for convenience and organization. You hear words in your mind, dictating you can't do that due to a lack of **Knowledge, Dilligence, Courage. Courage** is what you own, it's not courage, it's **Courage** , a proper noun, proper emphasis, because you at least have enough **Knowledge** to **Understand** what that means, because your **Knowledge** satisfies Margaret so she speaks to you, and you got some **Courage** the day before when you asked Mitsuo Kubo how he wanted to die.

What determines these points? Why do you earn ' **Courage** ' talking to your uncle? ' **Understanding** ' when you walk with Naoki Konishi? ' **Diligence** ' when you brush your hair? Why do you exist with numbers and scripts? What is determining your ability to do something, your capabilities? Why are you a number? Why are you following their rules? Why, why? Why?

…  
Scream at the wall  
"Am I real?"

You don't have enough **Understanding** …

…  
Scream at the wall  
"Am I real?"

You don't have enough **Despair** …

…  
Scream at the wall  
"Am I real?"

You can't answer your own thoughts. You decide to leave it until morning.

Sleep early?  
Yes  
No

 _You have a dream where you are being chased by Yosuke...  
You reach a cliff, and Yosuke runs into you, pushing you both off._

 _It was_ _exhilarating, but you feel like you cannot look Yosuke in the eye anymore._

* * *

These individuals are not your friends. Your friends do not live in the same designated spot, expressions shifting after seconds of delay. Your friends do not cheer constantly or smile with no laughter.

Teddie walks around Junes as a worker now. He smiles, and you watch him from one table in the food court. You're trying to remember if you ever interacted with him outside the television. The script says you aren't supposed to do this, aren't supposed to see him outside of the televisions in these off-screen moments, because at the Junes food court you're supposed to be with the group and going into the—

"Sensei? It's great to see you! What can I do for you?" Teddie's voice is a sunbeam on a smooth rock. You are one in the same, and the hard layer of rock and fused organs inside you seems to crumble in this off-kilter tone. Teddie is the only one whose voice doesn't shatter and turn to broken static (you can't—can't talk to ebihara anymore. her voice turned into shrapnel scraping down steel and you were afraid of the noises she was making, she wasn't going back to normal like the rest tend to do, and when you spoke one wrong word a voice told you something was reversed, the cord was snapped and the body was hanging. you went to chagall cafe nearby and threw up once more in their washrooms).

You ask if he's free right now. Teddie throws blue eyes over his shoulder, and with a pensive pout, he says, "Yosuke isn't around to yell at me, so it's A-Okay with me, Sensei!"

When you sit down at the table usually occupied by five other bodies, Teddie drops down across from you. He keeps his smile, those early summer flowers nodding in the abyss that was his thoughts, and you nearly lose it right then and there. _How can you be so pleased when you are a cavern of plastic flesh and viscera hanging from the walls?_

"What do you want to talk about, Sensei?"

 _Something is wrong with me, Teddie._

"Something… wrong? Is there anything this bear can do for you, Sensei?!"

He's in his human form, muted orange and dull brown uniform apron spilling down his front. His hands, short and round with fat little fingers, leap up from his lap and to the table, and even Teddie's face looks round, ursine—his nose is small and his hair looks it'd feel like pelt. Teddie could make himself. He made himself. You're about to be sick again.

 _I can't… sleep, I can't talk to people, I…. I talk to Yosuke, but it's not him…_

Teddie looks confused, concerned, perturbed. He stands and rounds the table, dropping to your right side. It's been a long time since you felt the warmth of another person sitting close to you—when Chie sits next to you on the roof it's as if she's not there, and Nanako's hands feel cold, clammy, dead. Teddie feels…

Teddie feels real.

"Can you see him, Sensei? When you talk to him, can you see him?"

You nod.

"Then… then he's there, silly, Yosuke is there, and Yosuke is real. He's as real as Chie-chan, and Yuki-chan, and Kanji and Rise-chan…"

Your fingers curl around your slacks, pressing nails to fabric. You see Teddie lift his hand, but he doesn't touch you. _I don't… know what's real anymore, Teddie._

"Are you… not sure if you're real, either?"

You nod again.

"… Are you like me, Sensei?"

 _I don't know._

You keep your head lowered, exhaustion colouring your eyes a thick charcoal, pressed against you like black and blue rings around your eyes. You are ill, physically so, with thin skin and thin hair. Teddie finally touches you, and you want to scream and cry and hit something all at once because Teddie's hand is the most real thing on your shoulder.

But you swallow vomit and tears and start talking, in your hollowed voice, shelled out long ago. How you think in numbers and choices, how conversations can never grow more, because every little thing feels like it was written in a candied script. How you hear their voices break and how some of them don't sound human anymore, and—what really _is_ human? Is it being able to change yourself freely? Alter your person? Your Persona?

You turn to look at him, and maybe your eyes are red—but you tell him you see the same being come out of Teddie whenever he uses his Persona, and the same thing from Yukiko, and Yosuke, and even Rise—but they fought something, they acquired something, they weren't given the opportunity before engaging in a fight. And is Izanagi _really_ you? If you can turn him into Pixie, into Forneus, into Gurr, into so many different creatures and being, all with different meaning— _who am I if I can change at the drop of a hat or the swipe of a card?_

You grab Teddie's hand, feeling his bones crunch and shift within his fingers, cartilage cracking, and you ask again— _who am I? Who_ _ **am**_ _I?_

Teddie wraps his arms around you as you feel yourself begin to cry. He's warm, he's real, and you might not sob but you cry silently, hot tears staining your face and Teddie's apron.

"We'll figure this out together, Sensei."

 _While your bond with Teddie was very young, you feel it reborn anew…_  
 _You feel your relationship with Teddie has changes drastically._

 _I am thou, and thou are I…  
Thou hast seen how bonds may change…_

 _The bond that hath changed, it is thy first step in learning the truth…_

 _Thou must bear thine inner power of "The Star" becoming "The World"…_

Teddie's smile is real. If there is one thing you have found to be real, it is the curved slit upon the boy's face.

* * *

You sit in the car with those fake people again and Margaret tells you the newest Persona she wants. You see no dialogue option in your programmed thoughts, but you interrupt her to tell her you feel your thoughts disturbed at the prospect of embracing White Rider.

She smiles, and tells you she expects you, of all people, to be able to show her this power. You see the car is moving slowly—leaping out would not kill you.

Unfortunately.

* * *

You meet Naoto Shirogane at the front of your school and he introduces himself with an eldritch roar and a choir of bones breaking. Yosuke grins and hisses broken glass and oil catching fire. You're learning how to speak their languages—and you go another day retaining no information, hearing a low hum in place of teachers and lessons. You learn one bit of information, brought on by a teacher's tangent.

You meet Teddie at lunch—you don't want to see anyone but him anymore. Teddie speaks your words, and you look at the sky together.

"I wonder if we're in a snow globe," Teddie says, staring at the clouds above you two. The sky is blue and the summer heat lingers. The sky whites out for you, because it doesn't render. "and we live in this one little world. It makes me wonder what's out there. The sky can't really be the limit, can it, Sensei?"

You don't answer, but you keep your head up. The bell rings in the distance.

* * *

You don't remember anything but this town that you're sure doesn't exist. You don't know anything beyond Inaba anymore. Teddie is of your kin, so it seems, and you suffer with him. He can smile and not dwell on it, but you fester in your anxieties.

* * *

Naoto is put into the television and he ██████to *!*$~|] 8 while ever88ne spe████SPEA██SPEAKS SP█AKS SPEAKS you're not real you figure gotta help the kid gotta █████████████████████████partnerareyouthere

You are incapable of killing the mechanical beast, the Shadow a manifest of all the mechanical terror you've felt, the robotic script you've been forced to recite-seeing the world in text boxes, quick answers, void of meaning. Yosuke is trying to lift you up and Yukiko says you're unconscious. That's not true—if you know _something_ , you're awake. You're awake. You're awake. You're not dead yet. The world is breaking around you.

But they can't lift you up and help you swing a sword, so Yosuke summons the scrapped subplot inside him and yells for Kanji to keep using a charge attack, and Chie, prepare your Bufula skills. Teddie, get into position!

Rise cradles your head. You find out she can still kneel and observe the battle, calling out what Naoto's Shadow is weak to, what you shouldn't use. She pets your hair and looks over your numbed body, muttering _'senpai, senpai'_ over and over again, praying you're still with them. Your eyes are clouded and you stare at the roof of the laboratory, the ceiling covered in pipelines crusted with mould around the seams, and you move your fingers in time with that godforsaken music, to make sure you're still going, still breathing, still moving. You hear Chie begin to yell, and her words are silenced with a loud gunshot, and Kanji is screaming—you hear metal crunch together, the delicate chime from above—

The world keeps breaking. You see flickers of video tape in your vision, of a broken glass screen. Time seems to pass, because you're being carried by Yosuke and Kanji out of the dungeon, Chie supporting Naoto. Apparently you won. Yosuke's face is torn open, from his cheekbone to his chin. You try to say his name, but your words slur and turn to static. You begin to panic, understanding overcoming you, but Teddie repeats something Yosuke says— _"Sensei, Yosuke says you have a concussion, don't talk!"_

Teddie is the only one who can break the sound barrier between you and this fake world, translating their corrupted tongues into your common tongue. You don't want this—you'd rather die in a grave of bolts and broken television antenna.

* * *

You went to the hospital for your concussion, and now you're recovering. You've been told to take it easy, and with Naoto out of the television, you've been told there's no reason to go back there for now. _Don't worry, partner,_ Yosuke starts, putting an arm around your shoulders. _Leave it to us for a bit. You've been under a ton of stress recently._ But in his voice, the rare times you hear anything but the whistling of white noise and the screams of something _inhuman_ , you hear disappointment. Why wouldn't he be disappointed? Naoto's Shadow hit you once and the anxiety and despair spilled out of you like blood-you were out of commission for the entire battle.

You consider telling Yosuke to leave you behind for good. Leave you in the television, let the Shadows swallow you whole. You think you'd feel at peace. Yes-as the Shadows tore into you, lapping up your blood like wine and gnawing on your bones, you'd be at peace. Something, anything, to prove you're alive, that you're real, that something about you is usable. You have no _real person_ , if the Wild Card means anything. If dying meant proving you exist, you would let the next Shadow take your head off.

You finally started to break the system-you spoke to Kanji for the second to last time, telling him that the police are terrible and irredeemable, and before Kanji could say your uncle's name, you say you wouldn't mind of all of them jumped in front of a car, with Dojima and Adachi leading the club. You left Kanji in stunned silence, and it had only been an hour into your time after school. You walk away from Kanji, and hear words carve into your head.

 _Your_ **Despair** _level has increased!_  
 _Your_ **Apathy** _level has increased! You have now gone from_ **'Distanced'** _to_ **'Isolated'** _!_  
 _Your_ **Self-Destruction** _level has increased!_

You see Teddie outside of Junes, and he smiles at you. The winds are getting colder, and he's wearing a winter coat bought with Nanako in mind. Your delirium briefly makes you believe no cloud of air passes his lips when he calls your name. You feel nothing when you realize you were wrong.

"Sensei! Sensei, Yosuke told me I'm almost on fire! His dad say I'm so fired up, I might no longer have to work at Junes! But then, Yosuke said that was a bad thing when _I_ said I was excited!"

You never understood how Teddie didn't fall with you. You're at Rank Thirteen with him now. You broke the system-everyone else stunted themselves at Rank Ten with you. Why does Naoki smile at you in the halls but stays still when you invite him to walk home? Why won't Daisuke look at you when you say it's time for practise? Ayane blushes and giggles when you offer to walk her to class-and then steps off, carried on her short legs. You don't get it, why interactions seem to go stale with everyone around you.

Except Teddie.

Teddie is real.

 _Teddie seems to be in high spirits._  
 _And with the right amount of_ **Despair** _, you realize you can crush that._  
 _Will you spend the afternoon with Teddie?_

* * *

Rank Twenty. December is right around the corner. Naoto is in the middle of an investigation with the Phantom Thief, but you stand with Teddie on the roof of the school, disrupting the code of Chie until she's a flicker of shrill noises and decaying light sources and look at him in the eye.

 _I am a Shadow. I am a Shadow. I am a Shadow._

Teddie has his back to the protective fence that keeps students from standing too close to the edge. He stares at both of your feet, hands behind his back and cheeks rosy from the cold. The world is bending around you. It wasn't scheduled to start snowing until the fifth day of December, after Nanako and Namatame were found in the television, but you're so hollow and you're so cold this _snow globe_ is blossoming from within you.

"Sensei... you shouldn't say that stuff..."

You had stopped Teddie's disappearance. He's slowly becoming the husk you yourself are. During Rank Thirteen, you had screamed at him. At Rank Fifteen, he took you to the hill overlooking town and asked what would happen if you two jumped off. At Rank Seventeen, you watched him beg Yosuke's father to let him keep his job at Junes, coincidentally after you lost your tutoring job. You had maxed out your **Apathy** , and stood there listening to Teddie cry and Yosuke demand Teddie keep the job. You said "that's how the world works" and earned a **Disdain** level up, going from **Disgusting** to **Repulsive**. You have enough skill to complete the Aiya's Rainy Day Staring Into The Endless Void Challenge.

"You're not a Shadow... and... and neither am I. We're... people."

You want to push Teddie off the roof.

He looks behind him, between the chain link barrier to the ground below. Frost is on the grass-covering patches of green and dying orange in a cyan hue, and it reminds you of Teddie's eyes. At Rank Eighteen, he took you to the hill again, and took out some lighter fluid, a barbecue lighter, and lit his bear suit on fire. You scared him into refusing to ever look at the television again. Not after what happened to Nanako.

Even after all that's happened, all that you two talk about, all that you theorize-he can still hope that he's anything than what he's killed. You gave up a long time ago.

"I-Sensei, listen to me. We're _real_. You and I are real. We are people, just like Yosuke, Chie-chan, Kanji... and Nana-chan." He looks up, back at you, and you see the sclera is red. "If... If dying means you're alive, doesn't that mean Nana-chan is real?"

It's the first time you have paused, in your mechanical thinking, cogs and gears grinding to a halt. Nanako is real. You share blood-real blood, not the 'kinship' you spoke about between you and Teddie-with Nanako.

"And she... we nearly lost her, S-Sensei... but she came back! Because she's strong, and she's alive! So d-doesn't that mean..." he wears gloves that wrap over his fingers like mittens, but attach blue felt together with velcro. His short fingers grip your coat, and yank on you. "There are people out there who are real?! D-Do we have to let Yosuke and the others end up like Nana-chan for you to believe me?!"

Somewhere, Teddie's words would have moved you. You would have felt magmatic shock course through your veins, breaking the rime over your nerves and brought forth a cherished light to you, volcanic warmth stirring inside and erupting like fireworks overhead. You'd have thrown your arms around him and screamed in his ear that he did it, he did it, oh my God, you did it! You found the loophole and you solved the true mystery! Choirs would chime, and thou would hath established a genuine bond! This genuine bond would have shown you the truth! You would be able to then summon Izanagi-no-Okami, the true form of the World arcana!

But the world does not flourish in epiphanies and moments of thought.

You stay hollow, you stay burnt, you stay drained. You still hold Teddie-you wrap your arms around him, tightly around his arms, and you lean into him, cold face against warm shoulder. Nothing is said, not even the exasperated sigh of 'Sensei'-Teddie stands in your hold, and you think again of going off the roof, wondering if you could apologize before you two hit the ground. But you hold this husk, because in your desperation to find one alike you, you drained Teddie of what made him _real_ , stealing the warmth in him and destroying it-

and you feel nothing at all.

 _Rank up._

* * *

When you all stare down Adachi, you stand just in front of Rise, with Yosuke at the front of the group. Teddie is to the right of the ground, wearing one of Yosuke's old school uniforms, having said his bear suit was 'ill fitting' now, and he-he moved better in human clothes now. He said _human_ strangely, enough for Naoto to watch him for a little longer than necessary, but it doesn't matter. Teddie has joined you as a husk ravaged with despair. The most ursine thing about him is the claw he wears over his hand as a weapon.

You no longer lose consciousness in here. You can stare at the melting figures, the distorted beasts, the apparitions summoned by Adachi, and know that there is no _kin_ here. Adachi's own demons are not yours-these are not wild beasts that you would find roaming the television, the ones you would want to die by. You don't want Adachi to kill you. So you find your strength, and you fight.

Adachi mocks Yosuke the most, _shocked_ that the group took a toll, losing a _better_ leader to some delirium brought on from a few headaches. Yosuke snarls some half-hearted defence in your name, but you feel Rise's eyes bore into you, because everyone knows Yosuke is _disappointed_ in you. You don't care. The code, the numbers, they all say you and Yosuke have forged a genuine bond that cannot be broken, even by cheating and hacking and dissecting it, attempting to bleed Yosuke dry of hope and happiness like you have. Yosuke can lead, if he's so dead set on solving the fucking mystery.

Susano-o doesn't-doesn't look _right_. None of their beasts look right. Suzuka Gongen's spear is blood red and her armour is broken, torn and bloody and feral. Amaterasu is pure white, not gold, and her face bleeds a cherry red down from where her eyes may have been, with broken wings and a blood-curdling cry. Rise creates Kanzeon, and her face is _impaled_ upon the radio dish, with her face bloody and fingers wrung around the blinders for the young girl, which forms a helmet this time around-and Rise is in physical pain using her Persona. You think it's your influence, corrupting these corruptions even more, making them realize how _disgusting_ they are, how _unpleasant_ they are, how they've betrayed **you** and how **you** just want to destroy existence.

And Kamui... Kamui is a _sphere_ with hypnosis spirals over it, grinning something devious, something _vulgar_ , shark teeth that seeks the jugular of Magatsu Izanagi. It claws down the faces of Shadows, as Teddie himself watches as he manages to carve through the Shadows, carnage disappearing into ash-not a mess left behind. Yosuke points to Kanji and yells for him to use Ziodyne-and for Chie to keep up Suzuka Gongen's charges. You smile, as you slit a humanoid Shadow's throat-at least your cowardice allowed Yosuke to learn about his natural leadership.

Yosuke is thrown to the ground by Magatsu Izanagi, and you respond with the creation of your own beast, some mythological spirit you can't remember the name of (because there's so many, so, so many, and it's always in your thoughts, always writing their names, taking up so much space) taking the hit for Yosuke, impaling the enemy on its sword. You grab Yosuke's hand, and even in your apathetic stupor, you call out _let's get going, partner!_ -Yosuke's spirit returns.

( at least one of you can come back with a few cheerful words. teddie's at rank whatever now, and he can't say his speeches around you anymore. )

* * *

They made you help Kanji drag Adachi out of the television, his exhausted half-corpse as you all recover from the spherical beast to spew fog around you and speak of destruction. You recognize its voice as the thing from Teddie that cemented your inhumanity.

Adachi turns his head to you, and tells you that you look like a husk. You reply you want yellow eyes, and he laughs.

* * *

Rank infinity.

Teddie sits in your room. Ideally, it was you, him, and Yosuke-but Yosuke called and told you he couldn't make it, because his father needed him for something at the store. You recognized it as Yosuke's _"I'd love to hang out with you but you're not the same guy from April, and really I'm scared about what you've done to Ted, so now that the case is over I want nothing to do with you anymore, see ya I guess"_ voice. Perhaps he's not reawakened by epiphanies either, after all.

Teddie sits on your couch and you stand in front of your futon-and he smiles, and says he's glad the case is over. He looks to you, and asks as well, "We don't have to go back to the TV, do we, Sensei?"

You shake your head. You like how he still calls you 'sensei'-you suppose you taught him a bit about self-depreciation and hating the world. He had to accept his Shadow some way.

Teddie smiles. It's his warm one, from fifteen thousand ranks before, when he could show you human warmth and prove the world wasn't ravaged with too much despair. His voice is not distorted, it's not corrupted like anyone else's, but it's mellowed. It's a tea candle in the winter snow. It refuses to go out, but it won't get any warmer.

"I'm glad, Sensei. I don't like being in there without my bear suit... but it's too late for that now, isn't it?"

He hugs his knees, and stares at your work table. Books are lying out, from the translation job you quit. You used your skills from that to translate a few poems on existence.

"I..." Teddie begins, and sighs. He looks tired, too, almost as much as you. "I don't like that look on your face, Sensei. The one that says you dislike what I'm saying. Believe me-I'm thinking about what you and I truly are, as much as you are.

 _I don't think about you, Teddie._

"I don't want to admit what I think we are. It means going back, and I never wanna go back. I wanna see Nana-chan get out of the hospital, and see what spring is like... I wanna eat all the ice pops I can this summer..."

Blue eyes are upon you, and Teddie lets go of his legs, sitting straight up. "I don't know what is going to come, now that we have that Adachi in jail... but I do know something, Sensei-you go back in the spring, too, right?"

You nod. He stands. The choir begins early.

"I... am going to be glad that you're gone. I don't ever wanna think about the stuff we talked about ever again."

 _Thou art I..._

"You said a lot of awful things. You made me _think_ about a lot of awful things. I'm going to go ask Yosuke if I can work at Junes again..."

 _And I am thou..._

"... see if Yuki-chan wants to go out on a date..."

 _These genuine bonds... shall be the bonds that suffocate you._

"... and say goodbye to you when you leave. But after you're gone..." Teddie's head is low, and you hear something in his voice-a choke, a bitter note, as he grips the door handle to open it. "I... don't think anyone will call you."

 _We bestow upon thee the opportunity to end thy friend's life, the ultimate act of despair in your vicious thoughts._

"I'm sorry, Sensei. I don't wanna lie to you."

 _END IT. END HIS LIFE. RUN UP TO HIM AND WRAP YOUR HANDS AROUND HIS THROAT. YOU HAVE A TELEVISION IN YOUR ROOM, MAKE THAT HIS GRAVE!_

"So... bye."

Teddie steps out of the open door, and closes it behind him. Listening closely, you can hear his footsteps down the steps, and to the door, which opens after a brief period of throwing on winter uniform, and then closes. You walk to the window in your room, pressing your face against the bitterly cold glass. You watch Teddie tread through the snow, head down and watching his feet, winter boots stepping through the thick packing snow. You breathe against the glass, and fog appears against it. With a numb face, you step back within your room, and sit down against the old wooden stand your television and textbooks sit upon.

Those fake people you had to call friends fear you. The only one that was human lost his humanity under your manipulation and volition. You couldn't take a step over the edge, after every opportunity, and see how far the world would go, until you were brought back to a period a week later. You smile, in your corrupt stupor, your hyperaware anguish, because you have enough **Understanding** to see that the world won't favour broken save points and buried plot lines.

 _Yu Narukami has forged a bond that can never be broken!_


End file.
